


From Adam

by zaraegis



Category: Cuphead (Video Game)
Genre: Completely in Love, Domestic Fluff, King Dye!Au, M/M, Slice of Life, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Used to be a Magician! Dice, human!AU, humanization, kinda eldritch Devil, our devil is different
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 15:47:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15318834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaraegis/pseuds/zaraegis
Summary: Down past the lower floors, to where the heat stays at a comfortable degree of sweltering as it nears Hell proper, the Casino Owner and the Manager lounge in bed before getting on with the day.





	From Adam

**Author's Note:**

> I started this off as a joke and welp, here it is. For more on the King Dye!au check out its [tag](https://zaraegis.tumblr.com/tagged/king-dye%21au/chrono) on my tumblr!

Ever since the whole 'sleeping with his boss' thing- _dating_ his boss, _falling in love with his boss_ but whose quibbling semantics really- Dice has gotten used to waking up with some truly mind bending goings-on in the same bed.

Some as odd as that time his lover surprised him with a breakfast tray in bed, other times he was left alone but with the fur wrap tucked around him like a belated 'good morning'.

Sometimes, it was as mundane as the visage of his lover, snoring gently upon his collarbone, infernal heat wrapped up in an alarmingly attractive package that tended to wind himself around Dice's limbs while sleeping.

Despite the ash tinged skin, the ivory horns or the truly, absolutely, stunning red eyes and yellow sclera, most of the time the Devil looks like just another mortal man to Dice. Sure, he has some truly worrying teeth that tend to set his blood to a low simmer more often than not. And the grey skin turns a startlingly void dark along his cheekbones, under the ever present skull he wears.

When they're sweaty and sated he'll close his brimstone eyes and in the surprising darkness Dice will swear he sees stars- _galaxies_ \- laid along in patterns in the shifting shadows of his face.

So.

Not exactly the most _human_ being to grace Dice's bed.

But- Dice has had years to get used to his lover's idiosyncrasies. Even before they were lovers. He plays to his strengths and one of them is observing how- untouchable- the Devil truly was. Sure he'd sidle up to someone, lean in close like the personal space required by propriety was a cute little fence he'd just as soon as stomp all over than follow.

He'd make grand gestures, give you intimate grins and take absolute pleasure in the fear that spiked every time he flashed his glass needle teeth in someone's face. But he wouldn't ever touch you. Not a little bit. Fine boned grey hands seemed to repel any mortal touch, and he did it with such panache that no one aside from Dice had noticed.

Dice could respect that.

He would also ignore it when it was to his advantage, of course. He loved to push and _push_ , and that was what probably landed him this job, deep in the bowels of Inkwell Hell with a man that wasn't a man and a fascination that _wasn't_ a crush.

But he pushed, little by little, until his boss -with a little mean smile that _did things_ to Dice's insides- pushed back.

Literally and metaphorically of course, the Devil did nothing by halves.

But when he caught his breath, which had left him somewhere between a strong hot knee pressing up between his legs and those alarming teeth nibbling gently along his jaw, he was left with uncomfortably tight trousers, his pomaded hair in disarray and staining, ashy hand prints in _very telling_ places.

Watching the entity that ruled his life- and his heart- saunter off with a saucy wink, Dice could never really decide if it was a reward or punishment that he was meant to take away from that first encounter.

Both probably.

His lover was talented at multitasking like that.

But the hand print thing. Dice remembered hearing a whisper of a thought of a rumor around the staff that the swirling ash on their boss' skin was the remnants of _wings_. He, of course, wasn't an idiot so he never mentioned it while orbiting the Devil on their casino rounds or nights together plowing through paperwork.

But he still wondered.

Thankfully it was fairly easy to wash off, but sometimes Dice would leave the smears. It was soppy and gross and sometimes he looked at himself and wondered what happened to the man who would happily dropkick someone off a pier.

He knew what happened. _Domestication._

Because he'd leave the Devil wrapped up in their sheets, already charcoal black to mitigate some of the smudges that inevitably happened, and head to freshen up only to spend minutes admiring the ashy marks. From hands twining around his arms or curling into him or the imprint of a cheek resting on his chest.

It was horribly domestic and Dice was split between a deep seated disgust and the urge to loosen the trembling and besotted sigh stuck in his chest at it.

He got his own back however. Because the Devil seemed to know. Dice wouldn't put it past the man. Wouldn't put it past the strange swirling ash that seemed to warp and weave itself independent from his lover. Whose to say he couldn't still sense it even as it laid under the layers of shirts and waistcoat and jacket his manager wore?

Those nights, the Devil would hone in on wherever Dice wandered, head turned to follow his meandering path between tables, chatting with highrollers, encouraging those who felt trepidation at anteing up. He used to be a magician. Still was in some ways. Smoke and mirrors and confidence tricks and seduction.

Always seduction.

Not necessarily carnal but the principles were the same: strategic eye contact, a knowing smile, careful body language that Dice rarely had to think about anymore. Keeping eyes on _him_ and not what his hands were up to.

And when he came back, contract in hand, he'd spy a flair of heat in that gaze.

And those brimstone eyes unerringly focused on what Dice knew was a hand print under his slacks.

Even now, Dice loved to _push_. He'd stop if it didn't garner some interesting results to be honest. But instead of looking away when he awoke in bed with the strange shifting darkness on his lover's skin right in view, Dice held an unwavering gaze with it, enough to turn the patterns into something he could- _almost- understand-_

The eye contact was interrupted by a palm shifting across his eyes. Dice bit back a smile and then remembered they were in bed, under the Devil's Casino, secure as could be from prying eyes. He let the smile unfurl under a hot hand.

A grumble met him, "Too early for your shit, King."

Dice couldn't see past the warm darkness of his lover's palm but he blinked away the remnants of oddly sticky afterimages and the dull buzzing that had been building up just out of his range of hearing.

Always pushing-

He gathered his lover up as much as he could, bony elbows and heavy in spite of it his thin frame but still bleeding a warmth that made him sweat into the sheets more often that not. The Devil ran hot, to no one's surprise.

Another wordless complain at being shifted more to consciousness before that hard mouth slanted across his neck. A deal. The Devil always dealt in deals. Small, medium or so big, Dice could barely catch the scope of it.

_Work for me and I will ensure your success with every contract._

_Get me a glass of something smooth and I'll let you dodge an hour of schmoozing tonight._

_Keep kissing me with pure naked affection and I won't let you go, won't let you be bored with the world._

_Leave me to my sleep,_ the slow kisses across his collarbones promised, _and I'll make it worth your while._

Tempting. But then, the Devil often was, Dice thought quietly to himself with a huff of amusement and lifted his chin upwards to leave himself at the Devil's mercy. Dice stayed lazy and pliant even as his blood quickened at the scrape of teeth right over his pulse, his lover mercilessly laughing low and hoarse. Dice jostled him a bit at that, a pout on his lips designed to land him an apologetic peck.

It worked every time.

Before the Devil went back to making sure Dice had a good reason to wear high collars, there was a last grumble before a hard nip at the sharp jut of his throat had him jolting to awareness.

"Ow." Dice said.

"I don't like that." his utter brat of a lover complained, which, what?

"My Adam's apple?" he mused aloud, the obnoxious glee in his voice merely rising conversely to the amount of annoyance in the Devil's. Sometimes this thing they had seemed like a long drawn out disaster just waiting to utterly crash and burn like the time Chimes tried to spin dishes in midair. Other times, Dice could blearily remember a life without the man in his arms and how utterly dull it was in comparison to this one.

Ugh. _Domestication._

A sharp bristly chin dug into his sternum and the Devil Himself pouted up at his manager, spitting the word "Adam" out like slimy primordial ooze he had the misfortune to come upon.

"It was _my_ apple in the first place."

Oh, not this again. "Oh, not this again."

" _Yes_ again, if anything is going to be lodged under your skin, it should be something of _mine_."

"You're ridiculous." Dice shot back, nonetheless cradling his lover's face between two hands, to prevent that sharp chin from leaving bruises and to brush a kiss against what would definitely not be called a pout.

"If it makes you feel any better, you've been deeper inside me than that countless times."

The Devil's eyes got heavy lidded and the red in them seemed to _glow_ in perverse smugness.

"Yeah I have, haven't I?" he drawled out, shameless as he pointedly ground his sharp hips down. Dice gave him a flat look before slipping out from under him and swinging up while the Devil was still sputtering.

Pinning the Devil's shoulders against the bed, Dice briefly lamented the decision to wear pajama pants. It sort of lessened the effect of grinding his morning wood down onto the plush ass below him. But not by much it looked like, judging by the delighted smile.

Dice laughed breathlessly, "I was talking about my _heart_ , you lech" over the rumbling sweet _'ah, ah, ah'_   below him.

"Liar" The Devil moaned, writhing and making absolutely no effort to dislodge his manager.

Dice said nothing but managed to grip his self control long enough to shimmy off, and saunter towards the bathroom. When the Devil continued to groan, in frustration this time, Dice just laughed and stopped to look back at his sulking boss.

Lounging against the door jamb, he was well aware of how the silk pants slid down almost indecently, a telling bulge keeping them up. Seduction, seduction. It was always at hand for those of his ilk. Magicians. Schemers.

Lovers.

And, like magic, the mewling lump on the bed was transformed into the originator of sin, the trickster of humanity... the Casino Owner a mere breath away.

It was flagrantly inhuman, the way heat seemed to radiate off of his boss in waves. And looming now a bare inch away, practically molded against his front, all Dice had to do was let the warmth leech into his bones, like standing almost atop a bonfire.

The by now familiar gleam of posessiveness and heat filled his lover's eyes and Dice didn't make it to the bath before he was stripped, madly laughing all the while, in between sharp kisses and roving hands.

They were late to work but who was going to tell them off?


End file.
